Saturday, 17 July 2010

Something simple for a lazy Saturday

Well, well, well I'm back! I have been seriously lakcing in the update department (my last post was shockingly a month ago). This isn't to say I haven't been cooking and baking my little heart out over the past 4 weeks, in fact I have a whole stack of recipes just queueing up to be shared with you, all of them more eager than the next to have their nummyness (if that wasn't a word before I definitely just made it one) immortalised in picture and word form. I promise these recipes are on their way but first here's one which jumped the queue a little (or a lot) partly because it's flavours are still fresh in my mind (and remnants still fresh on my fingertips) but mainly because it's one of those recipes which I bundled together myself after rummaging around in my fridge for scraps that would make a half decent meal.

I woke up this morning with the overwhelming desire to make a quiche. Don't ask me why, I have never had the desire to make a quiche in my life. In fact I'm not even a huge fan of quiche (egg dishes in general are eaten rather sparingly by me. Eggs are a food I need to really WANT to eat before I can stomach it)., nevertheless there it was. Perhaps it was fuelled by the blue skies and, until the past couple of days, glorious sunshine we've been blessed with here in London. Weather like this always makes me think of picnics and pcnics make me think of quiche. It may also have been the fact that for a few days now I've been eyeing a particular quiche recipe with interest. In fact it's almost definitely for that reason. Unfortunately, for those of you out there who are now salivating at the thought of eggy-baked-quichey goodness, I also woke up quite early this morning after rather a late night which followed an incredibly busy and rather stressful week. All of this combined to leave me struggling to find the will to leave the house and go and buy my ingredients. I will be making the tasty looking quiche at some point soon but now back to the results of my foraging.

This is really a recipe that isn't a recipe... it's a collection of things that taste nice together. But it IS summery, and it IS delicious. On foraging through my fridge for food I stumbled upon one of my favourite things in the world: haloumi. It's salty and meaty and just so damn delicious that the moment I saw it beckoning my from the cheese drawer I knew I had to eat it... but what to put it with? We didn't have any aubergine (and all that slicing and salting seemed like way too much effort for me this afternoon anyhow) or chicken or any other kind of meat. The only thing we had was bacon... bacon? Does haloumi GO with bacon? I've never seen it paired together before... but you see bacon with other cheeses (the brie in my fridge was also beckoning me but I have a feeling thats because it's now so out of date it can actually talk so I ignored it's calls) and both haloumi and bacon are pretty salty... so I thought why not? Add a few veggies and these bacon and haloumi skewers were born. I combined them with a mint and yoghurt dip and some wholemeal pita and the result was an absolutely delicious meal that was ready to eat in a matter of minutes!

Bacon and Haloumi Skewers with a Mint Yoghurt Dip

Ingredients - for the skewers

4 -5 rashers bacon

200g haloumi

1 green bell pepper

12 cherry tomatoes or 3 tomatoes cut into quarters

1 tbsp olive oil

- for the dip

250g plain yoghurt

3 tsp fresh chopped mint

1/2 medium red onion, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

pita to serve

Method:

Cut the haloumi and bell pepper into bit sized chunks and fold bacon into rolls and cut rashers in half so the fit neatly on the skewers. Assemble ingredients onto skewers as desired (I had 3 tomatoes and two chunks of everything else) then drizzle with olive oil ready for grilling.

Look at the pretties, sitting on my chopping board just waiting

to be grilled!

Heat a griddle over the hob or warm a grill or barbeque. Place skewers on the grill and cook for 3 minutes on each side, or until bacon is cooked through and haloumi and vegetables are nicely charred.

Cooking away! Not long now until chow time. XD

While the skewers are cooking make your yoghurt dip. In a bowl mix the yoghurt, onions and mint and season with salt and pepper to taste. Fresh mint is of course always best for this, unfortunately I didn't have any fresh to hand so I used frozen. Yes, you heard me right frozen mint! I had no idea this stuff even existed until this afternoon but there you have it. It's not as good as fresh so I'd always opt for that given the choice (as with all herbs) but a handy alternative to have in if you need it. Oh and just to prove I'm not lying about the existence of frozen herbs here's a picture: (yes I really was that amazed!)

Never seen frozen mint before? Well now you have!

Once your dip is made and your skewers cooked warm your pita for 30 seconds on each side and quarter. Serve your skewers and pita with a healthy dollop of yoghurt dip at the side and tuck in!

Yummy, yummy, yummy! These skewers were off the plate and in my belly in a matter of minutes.

I kn I keep saying it but these skewers really WERE delicious. They'd be even better if they were barbequed because the smokeyness would really work with the bacon and haloumi and there'd be even more of those delicious crispy bits of bacon. The sweetness of the pepper and tomatoes and sweet and creamy mint yoghurt are really nice against the salty haloumi and bacon. And of course the pita is perfect for mopping up all the lovely juices left on your plate (oh come on you know you all do it too!) Although I suggested you could use larger varieties of tomato instead of cherry I'd really stick to cherry tomatoes because they're smaller and sweeter. They also look super cute on a skewer, and they dont fall off when they soften! These skewers could also be tried with a whole host of other veggies such as mushrooms and onion.

About Me

Once upon a time there was a girl. When this girl was 18 she picked up a mixing bowl, bag of flour, some sugar, some butter and some eggs mixed them together, put them in the oven and discovered the joy of baking...